CountVonNumenor
Onshi
The IceFaiy tweet seems to be a goldmine in terms of information about what is going on with the game. But since it is 3:30 AM, please someone remind me to transcript everything here in the morning/later today.
Do Touhou and gacha work together? (2022 - Touhou LostWord, Danmaku Kagura - closed/going to be revived, Arcadia Record)
- Thread starter CountVonNumenor
- Start date
CountVonNumenor
Onshi
Yeah, this took me much longer than I was supposed to, so here is the info put together:
So, remember when KLab announced they were making a Touhou gacha game that turned out to be an asset flip of a bootleg game that stole assets and plagiarized from other games? Well, it's back and it's releasing today. On March 31st 2022, a new account for a Touhou Mobile game, Touhou Arcadia Record announced that they obtained a license to make a Touhou mobile game, and they were starting pre-registration.
With the announcement came a website, and at the very bottom of the website, people found something that made this prospective mobile game less than appealing. Namely that it was being published by KLab, who just one year ago announced the bootleg game, Danmaku Gensou.
Speaking of which, whatever happened to that game and the developer, Dobala games? No announcement of cancellation, no news of updates or anything, it's just gone, and one year later they now have this new game that's also far enough in development to release 4 months later.
Whatever happened to that old one, due to that incident, this new game, Arcadia Record, was given a lot of scrutiny by fans. And they found some of its activities suspicious. First, they found that the website was engaging in meta tag abuse, adding tags like Danmaku Kagura, Lost Word, and even Dungeon Dive to the meta tags, presumably as an attempt to increase their search engine rankings. They updated this after being called out on it.
They also used Unknown X's "What is Touhou" explanation, completely copy & pasting the description on Unknown X's for their own website. They updated this after being called out on it.
And most famously, they gave themselves the abbreviation 東方アルレコ (Touhou AruReco), which just happens to be the abbreviation used for Alstroemeria Records (of Bad Apple fame). They also hired Alstroemeria Records to compose a song for their announcement PV.
This, along with their meta tag abuse, and the fact that they were backed by KLabs, made people theorize that they were trying to use Alstroemeria Records' name and abbreviation to boost their own popularity, since their website and game to appear on searches for the circle. They updated this after they got called out on it. During Reitaisai , no less. Now they go by 東方アルカ (Touhou Aruka). Either way, this shady image stuck to them.
It didn't help that when they showed some of their assets off, people noticed that they look pretty familiar. As if it was just the assets of Danmaku Gensou with a fresh coat of paint. (And Danmaku Gensou itself was also just a bootleg game renamed into a non-bootleg game).
Sure enough, when the closed beta was released, it was pretty obviously, just the old bootleg game with a new coat of paint. On the left is a video of the old bootleg Touhou game, on the right is footage from the Touhou Arcadia beta.
More details can seen in the following article https://bilibili.com/read/cv1649004/
You can also see an example of the gameplay in the following video, featuring Hakurei Maiden, Star Wizard, Big Fairy, Scarlet Overlord, Hong Meiling (spelled differently), and Frost Fairy. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Tp4y1s77D. And if you think that was egregious enough, if you look at that boss battle and compare it to the screenshot in the Gematsu article, you'll notice a few similarities. As seen in this tweet. https://twitter.com/Doki2_yumoti_ch/status/1386598456756629506
In other words, they've not only plagiarised Touhou in the past, they're currently taking that pirate game, flipping the assets, and selling it as a new officially sanctioned game. The game itself can still be found right here. https://appadvice.com/app/e9-a3-9e-e5-a4-a9-e5-b0-8f-e9-ad-94-e5-a5-b3-e5-85-a8-e6-b0-91-e5-8a-a8-e4-bd-9c-e5-8d-a1-e7-89-8c-e6-89-8b-e6-b8-b8/1492900654
So, you might be thinking, "how could ZUN officially sanction this"? Well, here's the thing. ZUN is very hands off when it comes to Touhou related stuff. A lot of the times, when companies want to make merchandise or products, they don't go to him, they go to his legal team.
There have been a few "officially licensed" game here and there, such as Lost Word, and Dungeon Dive, these are all officially licensed in a sense that they've talked to ZUN's legal team, and gotten an okay from them. They have not gotten directly involved with ZUN in any way.
When it comes to official games that are actually part of the series, for now, that's only the numbered games, the collaborations with Tasogare Frontier, and some parts of the Seihou series. anything else is just considered a derivative work, regardless if it's made by a company.
Now, back to the new game. I hope anyone who was interested in it out give it a second thought and not give the game your attention. I believe what they're doing undermines the effort and love that every other Touhou creator pours into their works.
As well as being insulting to fans who were expecting a quality game. I hope that this thread has enlightened you in regards to the situation. To close with, here are a few more threads showing the extent of Dobala Games' asset flipping and plagiarism. https://t.bilibili.com/h5/dynamic/detail/517856430361073125
Reading this, especially the last part, has raised me some questions. Particularly on the legal team part. Could this mean ZUN does not really have any actual power over what is going on, and the legal team is doing everything behind his back? It only remains to be seen what will happen next.
So, remember when KLab announced they were making a Touhou gacha game that turned out to be an asset flip of a bootleg game that stole assets and plagiarized from other games? Well, it's back and it's releasing today. On March 31st 2022, a new account for a Touhou Mobile game, Touhou Arcadia Record announced that they obtained a license to make a Touhou mobile game, and they were starting pre-registration.
With the announcement came a website, and at the very bottom of the website, people found something that made this prospective mobile game less than appealing. Namely that it was being published by KLab, who just one year ago announced the bootleg game, Danmaku Gensou.
Speaking of which, whatever happened to that game and the developer, Dobala games? No announcement of cancellation, no news of updates or anything, it's just gone, and one year later they now have this new game that's also far enough in development to release 4 months later.
Whatever happened to that old one, due to that incident, this new game, Arcadia Record, was given a lot of scrutiny by fans. And they found some of its activities suspicious. First, they found that the website was engaging in meta tag abuse, adding tags like Danmaku Kagura, Lost Word, and even Dungeon Dive to the meta tags, presumably as an attempt to increase their search engine rankings. They updated this after being called out on it.
They also used Unknown X's "What is Touhou" explanation, completely copy & pasting the description on Unknown X's for their own website. They updated this after being called out on it.
And most famously, they gave themselves the abbreviation 東方アルレコ (Touhou AruReco), which just happens to be the abbreviation used for Alstroemeria Records (of Bad Apple fame). They also hired Alstroemeria Records to compose a song for their announcement PV.
This, along with their meta tag abuse, and the fact that they were backed by KLabs, made people theorize that they were trying to use Alstroemeria Records' name and abbreviation to boost their own popularity, since their website and game to appear on searches for the circle. They updated this after they got called out on it. During Reitaisai , no less. Now they go by 東方アルカ (Touhou Aruka). Either way, this shady image stuck to them.
It didn't help that when they showed some of their assets off, people noticed that they look pretty familiar. As if it was just the assets of Danmaku Gensou with a fresh coat of paint. (And Danmaku Gensou itself was also just a bootleg game renamed into a non-bootleg game).
Sure enough, when the closed beta was released, it was pretty obviously, just the old bootleg game with a new coat of paint. On the left is a video of the old bootleg Touhou game, on the right is footage from the Touhou Arcadia beta.
More details can seen in the following article https://bilibili.com/read/cv1649004/
You can also see an example of the gameplay in the following video, featuring Hakurei Maiden, Star Wizard, Big Fairy, Scarlet Overlord, Hong Meiling (spelled differently), and Frost Fairy. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Tp4y1s77D. And if you think that was egregious enough, if you look at that boss battle and compare it to the screenshot in the Gematsu article, you'll notice a few similarities. As seen in this tweet. https://twitter.com/Doki2_yumoti_ch/status/1386598456756629506
In other words, they've not only plagiarised Touhou in the past, they're currently taking that pirate game, flipping the assets, and selling it as a new officially sanctioned game. The game itself can still be found right here. https://appadvice.com/app/e9-a3-9e-e5-a4-a9-e5-b0-8f-e9-ad-94-e5-a5-b3-e5-85-a8-e6-b0-91-e5-8a-a8-e4-bd-9c-e5-8d-a1-e7-89-8c-e6-89-8b-e6-b8-b8/1492900654
So, you might be thinking, "how could ZUN officially sanction this"? Well, here's the thing. ZUN is very hands off when it comes to Touhou related stuff. A lot of the times, when companies want to make merchandise or products, they don't go to him, they go to his legal team.
There have been a few "officially licensed" game here and there, such as Lost Word, and Dungeon Dive, these are all officially licensed in a sense that they've talked to ZUN's legal team, and gotten an okay from them. They have not gotten directly involved with ZUN in any way.
When it comes to official games that are actually part of the series, for now, that's only the numbered games, the collaborations with Tasogare Frontier, and some parts of the Seihou series. anything else is just considered a derivative work, regardless if it's made by a company.
Now, back to the new game. I hope anyone who was interested in it out give it a second thought and not give the game your attention. I believe what they're doing undermines the effort and love that every other Touhou creator pours into their works.
As well as being insulting to fans who were expecting a quality game. I hope that this thread has enlightened you in regards to the situation. To close with, here are a few more threads showing the extent of Dobala Games' asset flipping and plagiarism. https://t.bilibili.com/h5/dynamic/detail/517856430361073125
Reading this, especially the last part, has raised me some questions. Particularly on the legal team part. Could this mean ZUN does not really have any actual power over what is going on, and the legal team is doing everything behind his back? It only remains to be seen what will happen next.
CountVonNumenor
Onshi
Alright, it looks like there is a bit of an update about the new content for LostWord JP. I was going to write something bigger in regards to me starting to get tired of the game, and questioning why I play it, but I will let that for another time. Seriously, it has already been a year of daily laying, but I am starting to feel like I need a break. But if I take a break, I am concerned I might be missing something. But at the same time, I am also getting tired of this, and it is becoming repetitive. I just want Raiko and Tenkyuu, then I could just gladly retired from this gacha hell (how in the world did I even end up playing a gacha game to begin with?). Anyway, on with the update:
ow that I think of it, I am actually a bit depressed, thinkin I may have wasted an entire year of my life with a game that did not bring me anything good in actuality. An entire year I could have perhaps use for getting into actual Touhou content, like, you know, the bullet hell games. Or anything more constructive overall. But man, do I really suck at any other Touhou games (especially the officia ones) or lack money to buy some of the ACTUALLY GOOD fangames out there...
ow that I think of it, I am actually a bit depressed, thinkin I may have wasted an entire year of my life with a game that did not bring me anything good in actuality. An entire year I could have perhaps use for getting into actual Touhou content, like, you know, the bullet hell games. Or anything more constructive overall. But man, do I really suck at any other Touhou games (especially the officia ones) or lack money to buy some of the ACTUALLY GOOD fangames out there...
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Agus Mandala
Onshi
I think it's another KLab Touhou game, Dobala Games never been mentioned in this game
CountVonNumenor
Onshi
One more thing to add. Do you remember LW before the days UFES, palette swaps and alts were not yet a thing? Yeah, this is how the JP tier list used to look like on the 9th of June 2021.
One other thing I was going to say about alts, and this comes full circle from the beginning of the thread, is that they do not really feel like the Touhou characters anymore. I get the premise we are going from an alternate universe to another, but I have the feeling a lot of these new characters would have fut in any other gacha. And without the Touhou tag on than, you would not have been aware they are supposed to be from a Touhou game. I'm starting more and more to confuse who is an alt of who, with just this new batch making me mistake their original character. And now, the game is more and more balanced around the new OCs or regular Touhou units the devs forgot to add, but are now making ridiculously powerful just for keeping the game relevant (remember when WRIGGLE NIGHTBUG of all 2hus was a top tier character in the game)
One other thing I was going to say about alts, and this comes full circle from the beginning of the thread, is that they do not really feel like the Touhou characters anymore. I get the premise we are going from an alternate universe to another, but I have the feeling a lot of these new characters would have fut in any other gacha. And without the Touhou tag on than, you would not have been aware they are supposed to be from a Touhou game. I'm starting more and more to confuse who is an alt of who, with just this new batch making me mistake their original character. And now, the game is more and more balanced around the new OCs or regular Touhou units the devs forgot to add, but are now making ridiculously powerful just for keeping the game relevant (remember when WRIGGLE NIGHTBUG of all 2hus was a top tier character in the game)
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Isaac
Onshi
On 7/28/2022 at 6:40 PM, CountVonNumenor said:
Yeah, this took me much longer than I was supposed to, so here is the info put together:
So, remember when KLab announced they were making a Touhou gacha game that turned out to be an asset flip of a bootleg game that stole assets and plagiarized from other games? Well, it's back and it's releasing today. On March 31st 2022, a new account for a Touhou Mobile game, Touhou Arcadia Record announced that they obtained a license to make a Touhou mobile game, and they were starting pre-registration.
With the announcement came a website, and at the very bottom of the website, people found something that made this prospective mobile game less than appealing. Namely that it was being published by KLab, who just one year ago announced the bootleg game, Danmaku Gensou.
Speaking of which, whatever happened to that game and the developer, Dobala games? No announcement of cancellation, no news of updates or anything, it's just gone, and one year later they now have this new game that's also far enough in development to release 4 months later.
Whatever happened to that old one, due to that incident, this new game, Arcadia Record, was given a lot of scrutiny by fans. And they found some of its activities suspicious. First, they found that the website was engaging in meta tag abuse, adding tags like Danmaku Kagura, Lost Word, and even Dungeon Dive to the meta tags, presumably as an attempt to increase their search engine rankings. They updated this after being called out on it.
They also used Unknown X's "What is Touhou" explanation, completely copy & pasting the description on Unknown X's for their own website. They updated this after being called out on it.
And most famously, they gave themselves the abbreviation 東方アルレコ (Touhou AruReco), which just happens to be the abbreviation used for Alstroemeria Records (of Bad Apple fame). They also hired Alstroemeria Records to compose a song for their announcement PV.
This, along with their meta tag abuse, and the fact that they were backed by KLabs, made people theorize that they were trying to use Alstroemeria Records' name and abbreviation to boost their own popularity, since their website and game to appear on searches for the circle. They updated this after they got called out on it. During Reitaisai , no less. Now they go by 東方アルカ (Touhou Aruka). Either way, this shady image stuck to them.
It didn't help that when they showed some of their assets off, people noticed that they look pretty familiar. As if it was just the assets of Danmaku Gensou with a fresh coat of paint. (And Danmaku Gensou itself was also just a bootleg game renamed into a non-bootleg game).
Sure enough, when the closed beta was released, it was pretty obviously, just the old bootleg game with a new coat of paint. On the left is a video of the old bootleg Touhou game, on the right is footage from the Touhou Arcadia beta.
Thanks for compiling all the controversies and sharing it with us Count! If I wasn't sceptical enough already, hearing all this makes me want to stay away from it completely. I'll make sure to share this with as many people as I can too. Shame that ZUN himself probably doesn't make these decisions and it's handled by his legal team instead. They might be more interested in making touhou popular than focus on the quality of these gacha games.
Isaac
Onshi
I couldn't describe the disappointment I felt when I saw this on the livestream. At the same time, I'm not surprised given the recent content for the game. I really thought these were just cute summer outfits. It doesn't really matter what story explanation there is, they shouldn't be epic variations at all. Also, I might give up on referring to the characters by their universe classification. There's too many at this point, including this new one. My heart is going to break if Epic Yukari and Relic Alice arrive quicker in global than the others.Now to get into the bullshittery though. If this is true, it seems like JP will get more EFes units (and knowing the pace, one month later getting into Global). And these are not any special kinds of units. They are beach episode alts. These could very much be costumes (and really wished it was as such), but the post puts it as they are individual units, or should have been costumes. I was a little bit concerned and pretty much though the beach episode will come eventually, but now here it is, confirmed by a few screenshots. I do not hate the idea of summer outfits, but I am disappointed it will be as Epic units if the whole thing is true, therefore units you cannot spark/use pity for. Otherwise, looks like Touhou LW wants to pull a Fate Grand Order.
Rinnosuke was/is not even a playable character in general as far as I know. Summer Yukari at least is confirmed to be a unit, and not just a skin
Apparent (unofficial) translation for the info on Summer Yukari. She will be a Heal unit:
While some of those alts look cooler than others like Marisa, I still have no interest in trying to get them. They're just going to be overpowered and everyone else that aren't epics or relics, won't have their stats improved. In fact, I don't even know if I'll be playing the game anymore by the time they're available.
Just like you and a large amount of the community, I'm tired of these decisions and I want to take a break as soon as possible. I'll be more than happy to once characters like Raiko and my beloved Parsee are finally here. I'm also going to be sad thinking about everything I invested in this game and whether it was all worth it in the end. At least one thing is certain, my dislike for gacha games has skyrocketed after LostWord.
CountVonNumenor
Onshi
@Isaac please remind me to come back later with a reply. All I know is that Chapter 4 seems to have already been translated to English, or at least the original teaser. I think the following Dev Letter for Global will cover it, so it might come shortly. For the record, it's been... 5 days since that was teased on JP, and it's already being brought up by Global.
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CountVonNumenor
Onshi
Alright, so to develop a bit what I was talking about:
- after more than a year of playing the game (Touhou LW), I feel like it has become stale. Everything is the same daily grind which does not really bring you any sense of fulfilment. You just grind for rare story cards with awful drop rate, grind points for events, grind characters to raise their level, grind items to use on upgrading said units etc. The new game mods have not felt very exciting at all, and were rather a frustration, even if they are supposed to be the more "strategic" modes (Conflux and whatever EX there is), the endgame. But it only feels cheap, with enemies that have multiple HP bars and whose gimmick is to lock your abilities while one-shotting your units.
- the way in which they are giving priority to new content is weird to say the least. Chapter 3 (with its way too prolonged story in 4 acts) took over a year to be completed and translated on Global by what seems to be a 2 men team. However, it looks like it only took them 5 days to already translate the teaser for Chapter 4, and the Dev Letter on the 3rd of August might actually be what will announce that story's introduction on Global. Meanwhile, Chapter 3.5 is still ongoing, and was not solved yet. There is no sign we will get next part of Interlude, whose ending apparently ties into Chapter 4. And let's not talk about the story cards which for months have been waiting to receive a translation, still staying there with a "Coming soon...".
- the characters - oh god, the characters. I am quite scared to say, but I am not feeling excited about anything coming at all. Let's take it chronologically with the story. Chapter 3.5/Interlude has already been out for half a month. However, as a surprise, Sumireko did not come yet as a banner despite her being the protagonist of that story (contrary to the seeming custom of LW to add a new character as banner soon after their story). Then, what seems to be the new set of units. First set of 5 units to be more precise, all on the same theme: BEACH EPISODE. Yes, it was inevitable as a gacha game to get such a phase eventually. It would have been fine if the characters (Yukari, Reimu, Marisa and Hecatia; Summer Rinnosuke will probably be NPC) were just summer costumes. But NOOO, it is already confirmed that at least "Summer Yukari" will be a separate unit, and an Epic Fes one above anything else. It remains to be seen what will be happening to the other ones.
- one more chunk of characters - the ones announced in the past couple days. Is it just me, or many of them feel like either cheap recolored units or just do not fit aesthetically into Touhou? Like without the Touhou brand stamped all over them, I would not have been able to recognize them. Before, alts seemed to be only the exception, that character who used to be affected most by the Lost Word incident. Chapter 1 had no alt. Chapter 2 had Scarlet Marisa. Chapter 3 introduced Tiny Yuyuko, Mysterious Sword Master, Blue Reimu and "loli Yukari". Then Hifuu pretty much went full on alts only. Which in itself is interesting if well executed. But now, I feel like they are becoming slightly too many, with some hard to recognize who they originally were. Let's take this one for example:
Initially, I though this was an alt version of Sanae. However, surprise, surprise, this is actually Yuuka. Had I not been told, I would have never realized it. The design itself is nice, I am not gonna lie. However, I am starting to feel like this game is starting to scream more and more OC galore, as they are running out of official 2hus to add. But this is more of a problem with gacha games in general. Always forced to add new content to stay relevant, they had to add everyone in as soon as possible. And now, after 2 years of JP, they are scraping the barrel. Once the whole UM cast is in, it is very much game over until ZUN comes up wit new characters - of course, if LW survives until then. And it is not necessarily about the fact they are adding alts. Again, it is fine, since we are talking about a premise revolving around going to alternate universes. The only problem is that these characters might take the spot of the official characters. When the game came out on Global, alts did not exist yet, the tier list being made out of the original 2hus. Now, if the OCs take the spot, what will happen to the game? Will this just be a game that has the word "Touhou" in its name, but will be more about alts? Will this become just "Touhou OCs - The Game"? Sometimes, it really feels like the real 2hus barely get any love anymore. If these new OCs will be mostly UFES and SFES, I am not very sure relevant that designation will be anymore. I do not really know how relevant the designations are anymore. It is already confusing that we have 4 different paper doll kinds, or that 2 new rarity levels were introduced in just a month. The normal Touhou characters, especially those from like last year, are no longer relevant, and will be replaced by reskins of them, I mean "retros" just because nobody really seems to be planning to update them. I wonder what will this game bring up next...
tl;dr: Honestly, I feel very fatigued, and without high expectations or excitement for what is to come. I just want to finally finish the collection of personal Top 10 Touhou characters, and then to take a break. Maybe part ways with this game at last, or just take a long break until anything new and actually interesting will be introduced. I still have hopes for this game to bring in something good, even if my hope is low.
As for you, @Isaac I think LW Global lost a good chance to add Parsee with the SA Koishi banner. In my case, I guess Wood EX will be the moment they will finally add Raiko into the game. As for Chimata, only god knows when she will come. I just hope it will not be too late for that, until I will finally break and lose all hope and interest in this game.
- after more than a year of playing the game (Touhou LW), I feel like it has become stale. Everything is the same daily grind which does not really bring you any sense of fulfilment. You just grind for rare story cards with awful drop rate, grind points for events, grind characters to raise their level, grind items to use on upgrading said units etc. The new game mods have not felt very exciting at all, and were rather a frustration, even if they are supposed to be the more "strategic" modes (Conflux and whatever EX there is), the endgame. But it only feels cheap, with enemies that have multiple HP bars and whose gimmick is to lock your abilities while one-shotting your units.
- the way in which they are giving priority to new content is weird to say the least. Chapter 3 (with its way too prolonged story in 4 acts) took over a year to be completed and translated on Global by what seems to be a 2 men team. However, it looks like it only took them 5 days to already translate the teaser for Chapter 4, and the Dev Letter on the 3rd of August might actually be what will announce that story's introduction on Global. Meanwhile, Chapter 3.5 is still ongoing, and was not solved yet. There is no sign we will get next part of Interlude, whose ending apparently ties into Chapter 4. And let's not talk about the story cards which for months have been waiting to receive a translation, still staying there with a "Coming soon...".
- the characters - oh god, the characters. I am quite scared to say, but I am not feeling excited about anything coming at all. Let's take it chronologically with the story. Chapter 3.5/Interlude has already been out for half a month. However, as a surprise, Sumireko did not come yet as a banner despite her being the protagonist of that story (contrary to the seeming custom of LW to add a new character as banner soon after their story). Then, what seems to be the new set of units. First set of 5 units to be more precise, all on the same theme: BEACH EPISODE. Yes, it was inevitable as a gacha game to get such a phase eventually. It would have been fine if the characters (Yukari, Reimu, Marisa and Hecatia; Summer Rinnosuke will probably be NPC) were just summer costumes. But NOOO, it is already confirmed that at least "Summer Yukari" will be a separate unit, and an Epic Fes one above anything else. It remains to be seen what will be happening to the other ones.
- one more chunk of characters - the ones announced in the past couple days. Is it just me, or many of them feel like either cheap recolored units or just do not fit aesthetically into Touhou? Like without the Touhou brand stamped all over them, I would not have been able to recognize them. Before, alts seemed to be only the exception, that character who used to be affected most by the Lost Word incident. Chapter 1 had no alt. Chapter 2 had Scarlet Marisa. Chapter 3 introduced Tiny Yuyuko, Mysterious Sword Master, Blue Reimu and "loli Yukari". Then Hifuu pretty much went full on alts only. Which in itself is interesting if well executed. But now, I feel like they are becoming slightly too many, with some hard to recognize who they originally were. Let's take this one for example:
Initially, I though this was an alt version of Sanae. However, surprise, surprise, this is actually Yuuka. Had I not been told, I would have never realized it. The design itself is nice, I am not gonna lie. However, I am starting to feel like this game is starting to scream more and more OC galore, as they are running out of official 2hus to add. But this is more of a problem with gacha games in general. Always forced to add new content to stay relevant, they had to add everyone in as soon as possible. And now, after 2 years of JP, they are scraping the barrel. Once the whole UM cast is in, it is very much game over until ZUN comes up wit new characters - of course, if LW survives until then. And it is not necessarily about the fact they are adding alts. Again, it is fine, since we are talking about a premise revolving around going to alternate universes. The only problem is that these characters might take the spot of the official characters. When the game came out on Global, alts did not exist yet, the tier list being made out of the original 2hus. Now, if the OCs take the spot, what will happen to the game? Will this just be a game that has the word "Touhou" in its name, but will be more about alts? Will this become just "Touhou OCs - The Game"? Sometimes, it really feels like the real 2hus barely get any love anymore. If these new OCs will be mostly UFES and SFES, I am not very sure relevant that designation will be anymore. I do not really know how relevant the designations are anymore. It is already confusing that we have 4 different paper doll kinds, or that 2 new rarity levels were introduced in just a month. The normal Touhou characters, especially those from like last year, are no longer relevant, and will be replaced by reskins of them, I mean "retros" just because nobody really seems to be planning to update them. I wonder what will this game bring up next...
tl;dr: Honestly, I feel very fatigued, and without high expectations or excitement for what is to come. I just want to finally finish the collection of personal Top 10 Touhou characters, and then to take a break. Maybe part ways with this game at last, or just take a long break until anything new and actually interesting will be introduced. I still have hopes for this game to bring in something good, even if my hope is low.
As for you, @Isaac I think LW Global lost a good chance to add Parsee with the SA Koishi banner. In my case, I guess Wood EX will be the moment they will finally add Raiko into the game. As for Chimata, only god knows when she will come. I just hope it will not be too late for that, until I will finally break and lose all hope and interest in this game.
sodaodaoda
Onshi
Ughhhh, I feel you so much, at this point it actually feels like torture when I play TLW. Every time I see that a new unit has been announced, that is either a Retro Fes or a UFes, I genuinely fucking die on the inside. I'll probably just rant from here on out so be warned.
I sparked for EoSD Pache a few days ago. The only reason being that I have EoSD Marisa and PCB Alice (my beloved <3) and I wanted a Magic Trio with those 3, so I'm guessing that the "Collecting PNGs mania" caught up with me. A few days ago, I was at my best friends place, and in our Discord server, I set up a webhook that will show TLW updates in a seperate channel, for both global and JP updates. I kid you not, when I saw that they were gonna release UFes Meiling, I almost started crying, since we JUST finished trying to get EoSD Pache, and we DIDN'T get her (He doesn't play TLW, but he does get how prayers work and does know about Touhou from me because I won't shut up about it),
It feels so bad because the rates are fucking attrocious, they release characters at the speed of fucking light, AND NOW (spoilers)
THEY FUCKING ANNOUNCED AN ALICE RELIC, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????
Now I remembered the reason why I stopped playing this game. And fun fact, I stopped almost 2 months later, after the game released last year! I remember the last banner I saw before coming back was Alterisa. The only reason that I came back is because I saw pics of EoSD Rei and Mari, and they *genuinely* haunted me in my dreams, so one day I woke up after dreaming about TLW, and said "ok ill install it again", and now I'm back thinking about uninstalling it again lmao
OHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHH man, I'm pretty angry at this game, if you couldn't tell already lmao
CountVonNumenor
Onshi
Hello soda, I wish I could transfer units from one player to another, as I would have donated you my EoSD Patchouli. I played on that banner for a bit, looking to mostly get Reimu, but something like 1250 SCs and a bit of mental sanity gome, I got all of the EoSD retros. At least I made an irl friend happy by getting Cirno...
I guess this is what has commonly been defined as FOMO ("fear of missing out"). Honestly, I am going through the same feeling, which his one of the main reasons I have not skipped a single day in this day since I got into it. Now though, I may start feeling sorry about it, as I have grown too invested into everything to drop it for good. No matter how much we are getting annoyed or mald and seethe about the game, we still com back to it. NO. MATTER. WHAT. And it is not like the two of us suddenly dropping it would have any result on the game itself. If both of use are 100% f2p players, we basically do not exist in the gacha chart.
Oh boy. I do remember the days when the biggest controversy in the game was the fact the Alterisa and Suika had back-to-back banners. But ever since, it looks like this incident might be nothing compared to everything else that came afterwards. Even though some still put it as the episode when things started going wrong with Global (though I would rather put it either at the 0.5 Anniversary or somewhere at the time of Mysterious Sword Master).
I really wished those were just cute summer outfits just like you. But even outfits are regularly a bit on the expensive side, at 480 GCs.
I will bring again this mountain of text, just for the sake of explaining relevance of characters based on what it seems to be the future of the game:
They really range from minimal to extreme huh. The previous chapters had a focus on using L1 characters in different situations while keeping the Alts limited to the "main characters/focal characters" of the arc, like Ultra Myon/Loliko and Altrisa. Now they're changing that to the Hifuu route of "Basically any character involved is getting an alt" which lets them put out these alternate designs as characters instead of costumes and sell a shit ton more Ufes/Efes banners.
It's a tough question where you draw the line between what's suitable for a costume and what can be an alt, so LW basically drew the line using their universes. Iterations of characters who aren't L1 can be released as separate units, characters who are L1 can only get costumes, not alts. That would monetarily incentivise the devs to focus on spamming out these non L1 redesigns and keep the L1 costumes to events only, and since the precedent is that story related characters are Ufes or higher, that makes it a double win for NN when they choose to create a shit load of redesigns from different universes all at once. Gleam from that what you will.
Ultimately all that I want though is just for Chapter 4 to be a well told story, no setting is inherently bad, it just requires the finesse of a good writer to make something interesting out of it.
Note: we really need a good story now, especially after the mess that was Chapter 3. And a seriously good justification for the beach episode and sudden burst in population of alts living in the same universe outside Hifuu. Like why did we get from a universe where only 1-2 characters are affected to suddenly the entire cast being different from what we grew used to.
Since story based alts from other universes tend to be Ultra fes or higher units now, and with as many characters as we can see here, this could be the point in which fes units basically become what gen units used to be. Ufes units will become the new Fes units, in that they'll take the place that fes units used to represent. Fes units will become the new gen units, in that they'll take the place that gen units used to represent and Efes units will take the place of ultra fes units, in that they'll take the place of what Ultra fes units used to represent SPECIFICALLY back before the mechs, where ultra fes was given to the main characters of the respective universes, Myon/Loliko and Altrisa style. With this, they can effectively just raise the price of summoning across the board with A-series units representing the only point of new regular fes units once L1 is finally complete, and everything else being Ultra or higher while gen pool units effectively vanish all together, quite the scary possibility.
Ultimately I'm just doom-speculating, so let's just hope it doesn't come to that.
[And in reply to that]
Thing is, Fes units are already becoming what general pool are, literally. Yukari and Kasen got moved to to the general pool (also maybe Byakuren but I can’t confirm it other than one person’s screenshot). Assuming every L1 Fes will share the same fate, from now on the Fes pool will just be Retros. The general pool will probably be very cluttered and stagnant while they keep pumping out Fes+ units. Sure, them pumping out alts was an inevitable outcome considering their refusal of making PC-98 units and their being only so many Windows units, but they shot themselves in the foot by pumping out units every week, the costume system blurring the lines between what should and shouldn’t be an alt, and the multitude of rarities
So from what I understood:
- current general pool category might become useless/irrelevant
- FES as the new General
- every rank moved one lower (say hello to UFES as the new FES and Epic FES as the new UFES)
- basically UFES units will be the norm when it comes to new main story universes
- it is very possible the general summoning prices to go high(er)
- and my conclusion: "guys, we are out of the classic 2hus, we need something to shove to the people QUICK!"
sodaodaoda
Onshi
Dude, where the fuck are the PC-98 characters?
PC-98 Reimu and Marisa WERE in the story (Now I can't remember if it was Hifuu or the Main Story, but I know they were there somewhere), amd they did mention Yumeko, so where are the others???
I'd actually sell both of my kidneys for a playable Konngara. or any of the HRtP characters, I wonder how YuugenMagan would look like.
Speaking of the devil, Alterisa came back with a rerun! So far, there banners are live:
- Remilia Scarlet (L80) (Relic), new unit
- UFes Meiling, new unit
- Small Yuyuko (UFes), rerun
- Alterisa (UFes), rerun
- Patchouli (EoSD) (Fes), new unit (although her banner ends today, so idk if I should include her)
- Suwako (MoF) (Fes), new unit
- Koishi (SA) (Fes), new unit
So, either retros of UFeses huh.
I hope that the next retro won't be (spoilers)
Ran Yakumo
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CountVonNumenor
Onshi
PC-98 Reimu and Marisa appeared in a cutscene for the first Hifuu story. Although they were just...standing there and exchanging a bit of dialogue. The two also appeared on some promotional material for the game, but ever since there has been no sign they will be added as playable (like with any other PC-98 character). The devs don't really seem interested to add characters from the first 5 games even if complaining they ran out of original 2hus from the Windows canon. And at how characters are being released nowadays, I'm afraid the old era might come as something like UFes or maybe even Efes as those seem to be the norm nowadays.
Ran (I guess retro PCB version) did appear in some cutscene on JP, but again, no actual banner as far as I remember. Or maybe did she get a banner there? I can't remember. Anyway, we can only wait for the Dev Letter in a couple days and see what's in the mind of those running the game.
sodaodaoda
Onshi
CountVonNumenor
Onshi
Oh wow, it seems like I missed this one. Yeah, I wonder when she will come to Global, and if it will be like with EoSD Patchouli and put her in a bundle with the other PCB alts. People have been wondering where PCB Yuyuko is though, given that she apparently appeared somewhere.
CountVonNumenor
Onshi
Alright, there is some more info about Summer Yukari
Agus Mandala
Onshi
On 7/29/2022 at 12:40 AM, CountVonNumenor said:
Yeah, this took me much longer than I was supposed to, so here is the info put together:
So, remember when KLab announced they were making a Touhou gacha game that turned out to be an asset flip of a bootleg game that stole assets and plagiarized from other games? Well, it's back and it's releasing today. On March 31st 2022, a new account for a Touhou Mobile game, Touhou Arcadia Record announced that they obtained a license to make a Touhou mobile game, and they were starting pre-registration.
With the announcement came a website, and at the very bottom of the website, people found something that made this prospective mobile game less than appealing. Namely that it was being published by KLab, who just one year ago announced the bootleg game, Danmaku Gensou.
Speaking of which, whatever happened to that game and the developer, Dobala games? No announcement of cancellation, no news of updates or anything, it's just gone, and one year later they now have this new game that's also far enough in development to release 4 months later.
Whatever happened to that old one, due to that incident, this new game, Arcadia Record, was given a lot of scrutiny by fans. And they found some of its activities suspicious. First, they found that the website was engaging in meta tag abuse, adding tags like Danmaku Kagura, Lost Word, and even Dungeon Dive to the meta tags, presumably as an attempt to increase their search engine rankings. They updated this after being called out on it.
They also used Unknown X's "What is Touhou" explanation, completely copy & pasting the description on Unknown X's for their own website. They updated this after being called out on it.
And most famously, they gave themselves the abbreviation 東方アルレコ (Touhou AruReco), which just happens to be the abbreviation used for Alstroemeria Records (of Bad Apple fame). They also hired Alstroemeria Records to compose a song for their announcement PV.
This, along with their meta tag abuse, and the fact that they were backed by KLabs, made people theorize that they were trying to use Alstroemeria Records' name and abbreviation to boost their own popularity, since their website and game to appear on searches for the circle. They updated this after they got called out on it. During Reitaisai , no less. Now they go by 東方アルカ (Touhou Aruka). Either way, this shady image stuck to them.
It didn't help that when they showed some of their assets off, people noticed that they look pretty familiar. As if it was just the assets of Danmaku Gensou with a fresh coat of paint. (And Danmaku Gensou itself was also just a bootleg game renamed into a non-bootleg game).
Sure enough, when the closed beta was released, it was pretty obviously, just the old bootleg game with a new coat of paint. On the left is a video of the old bootleg Touhou game, on the right is footage from the Touhou Arcadia beta.
So basically the developers (Probably dobala game) tried hides their existence in this game and only mention KLab? They also want to hide all the bottlegs they have done in past? What a sly company
smortkoishi
Onshi
after how DK just died, LW turn into a cash grabing, and AR is just seem like a bootleg remake. Maybe touhou just can't be a gacha game, just a bullet hell, metroidvania, LN,... but definitely not fit to be a gacha game. That should be a good conclude if there is anything else new
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CountVonNumenor
Onshi
Yes, it is said DanKagu will close down. I don't really care about Arcadia. LostWord is slowly starting to drain my soul especially with recent game evolution. We should not forget that CAVE is apparently coming with a Touhou gacha too (CAVE is known for bullet hell games, but everybody assumes their Touhou game will be gacha given the recent games coming from that group/company). Well, I do not really know what to expect anymore... I think I would only get more depressed.
More info on LW likely to come tomorrow. Even if this thread would get a conclusion, I will still keep it alive with game updates as this is pretty much THE DISCUSSION THREAD for all the games of this kind and which have the Touhou name slapped on them.
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CountVonNumenor
Onshi
Hey, look at this. Apparently, the EpicFes on JP was supposed to also have the 130 free prayers. However, that feature was axed TWICE on JP, but somehow survived on Global. Just Take a look...
I do not now for sure if JP has actually axed it with the Yukari banner, but apparently it was removed when Blue Reimu came. I am not very sure what this link says, but I have found it connected to the images https://touhoulostword.com/2022/07/27/210767/banner_spnorito_saffjhit/
I do not now for sure if JP has actually axed it with the Yukari banner, but apparently it was removed when Blue Reimu came. I am not very sure what this link says, but I have found it connected to the images https://touhoulostword.com/2022/07/27/210767/banner_spnorito_saffjhit/